Great Wagon RoadPublished on NCpedia (http://ncpedia.org)

Great Wagon Road [1] Average: 3.6 (11 votes)

Great Wagon Roadby R. Jackson Marshall III, 2006

The Great Wagon Road was the most important frontier road in the state's western Piedmont duringthe eighteenth century. Sometimes called the "Great Philadelphia Wagon Road," it began inPhiladelphia, crossed westward to Gettysburg, turned south to Hagerstown, Md., continued south toWinchester, Va., through the Shenandoah Valley to Roanoke, and on to the North Carolina border.There it entered present-day northeastern Stokes County [2] and passed through Walnut Cove,Germanton, Winston-Salem [3], Salisbury, and Charlotte [4] before continuing into South Carolinaand Georgia.

[5]

The route that became the Great Wagon Road was originally a Native American [6] hunting, trade,and war trail called the "Warrior's Path [7]." In the mid-1700s European colonists, many arriving fromships in or near Philadelphia, began traveling south along the trail in search of land for new homes.At first the road was so narrow and rough that only travelers on horseback could use it; the farthersouth it went (from Pennsylvania into the wilderness), the more impassable it became. But as thesettlers made their way along the trail, they cut trees, found suitable fords across rivers, and workedaround obstacles until wagons [8] could pass. In time the Great Wagon Road improved, by colonial[9] standards.

From the 1750s the Great Wagon Road was critical to the development of North Carolina. Tens ofthousands of German [10] and Scotch-Irish [11] immigrants entered the colony from the north alongthe road and settled in the western Piedmont. The Moravian [12] settlements of Bethabara [13],Bethania, and Salem [14], as well as the cities of Salisbury and Charlotte, owe their creation andexpansion to the Great Wagon Road. Important as a trade route, it provided a means for transportingfrontier goods like deerskins [15] to trade for salt, firearms, iron, and other items. Livestock such as hogs [16] were herded down the road to markets in Virginia or South Carolina. In fact, the road wascrucial to the survival of the western fringe of colonial settlement.

During the Revolutionary War [17], the Great Wagon Road was the key supply line to the American

About | Contact usContributors | How to contribute | Educator resources

Share | Comments | PrivacyStaff login

Page 1 of 3

Great Wagon RoadPublished on NCpedia (http://ncpedia.org)

resistance in the western areas of the colonies, especially in the South. For this reason Lord CharlesCornwallis [18] led his English army from Charleston to the Great Wagon Road at Camden, S.C. Histroops marched north along the road through Charlotte, and later through Salisbury and Salem, in anattempt to destroy Gen. Nathanael Greene's Continental Army and civilian support in North Carolina.Although unsuccessful in all these efforts, Cornwallis fully understood the importance of the GreatWagon Road during the Revolution.

The road continued to play a significant economic role in North Carolina into the nineteenth century.With the expansion of railroads [19] and the development of new roads [20] in each community,however, it fell into disuse and in many areas disappeared. Much of the original route can still befound in Maryland and Virginia as State Highway 11, but there is no state or federal road that followsit in North Carolina. Parts of the old road can be found in heavily wooded tracts, and often local roadsfollow a brief stretch of the old route, but the cities that owe their existence to the Great WagonRoad have largely buried it through urban development.

References:

Forrest W. Clonts, "Travel and Transportation in Colonial North Carolina," NCHR 3 (January 1926).

James M. Cooper, The Indian Trading Path and Great Wagon Road across North Carolina: HighlightingRowan and Cabarrus Counties (1995).

C. Christopher Crittenden, "Overland Travel and Transportation in North Carolina, 1763-1789," NCHR8 (July 1931).

Additional Resources:

Mobely, Joe A., editor. "The Great Wagon Road." The Way We Lived in North Carolina. Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press. 2003. http://www.waywelivednc.com/before-1770/wagon-road.htm [21] (accessed June 15, 2012).

Rouse, Parke. The Great Wagon Road: from Philadelphia to the South. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1973.

Image Credits:

Great Wagon Road map by Mark Anderson Moore, courtesy North Carolina Office of Archives andHistory, Raleigh.

Subjects: Roads [22]UNC Press [23]Authors: Marshall, R. Jackson, III [24]From: Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. [25]

1 January 2006 | Marshall, R. Jackson, III Source URL: http://ncpedia.org/great-wagon-road

Links:[1] http://ncpedia.org/great-wagon-road[2] http://ncpedia.org/geography/stokes[3] http://ncpedia.org/geography/winston-salem[4] http://ncpedia.org/geography/charlotte[5] http://ncpedia.org/sites/default/files/images/enc/map13_lg.png[6] http://ncpedia.org/american-indians/introduction[7] http://ncpedia.org/indian-trading-paths[8] http://ncpedia.org/road-wagons[9] http://ncpedia.org/history/colonial/overview[10] http://ncpedia.org/german-settlers

About | Contact usContributors | How to contribute | Educator resources

Share | Comments | PrivacyStaff login

Page 2 of 3

Great Wagon RoadPublished on NCpedia (http://ncpedia.org)

[11] http://ncpedia.org/immigrant-colonies[12] http://ncpedia.org/moravians[13] http://ncpedia.org/bethabara[14] http://ncpedia.org/salem[15] http://ncpedia.org/fur-and-skin-trade[16] http://ncpedia.org/hog-farming[17] http://ncpedia.org/american-revolution[18] http://www.thepeerage.com/p19799.htm#i197984[19] http://ncpedia.org/railroads[20] http://ncpedia.org/roads[21] http://www.waywelivednc.com/before-1770/wagon-road.htm[22] http://ncpedia.org/category/subjects/roads[23] http://ncpedia.org/category/subjects/unc-press[24] http://ncpedia.org/category/authors/marshall-r-jackson[25] http://ncpedia.org/category/entry-source/encyclopedia-

About | Contact usContributors | How to contribute | Educator resources

Share | Comments | PrivacyStaff login

Page 3 of 3